And, while the F.B.I. conducts its investigation in secrecy, the White House insists publicly that there is nothing to investigate.

“It puts us in a very difficult position,” said Frank Montoya Jr., a former F.B.I. agent who served as the government’s senior counterintelligence official and retired last year. “We are pushed and pulled by Congress, and then having to address the concerns of the White House and Justice Department.”

The overlapping investigations have, in some cases, already been plagued by partisan sniping and misdirection by Mr. Trump, raising questions about whether there can ever be a full public accounting of the scope of Russia’s campaign to influence the election in November.

Monday will bring the first public intelligence committee hearing on Russia since then, when the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and the director of the National Security Agency, Michael S. Rogers, will testify before the House panel. But in a sign of how convoluted Russian matters have become, their testimony is most anticipated not for what they will say about their investigation, but for whether they will publicly deny Mr. Trump’s claim that Trump Tower had been wiretapped during the campaign, for which he has cited no evidence.

The wiretapping claim shows how easy it is — when all the answers are cloaked in secrecy — to send investigators in different directions and muddy the conversation.

Representative Jackie Speier, a California Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, lamented that lawmakers had spent “weeks not talking about Russia, and instead talking about whether he was wiretapped.”

Congressional leaders have not indicated how they envision their inquiries ending, and so far they are still seeking common ground on how to begin.

“It is a very different time,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He contrasted the Russia inquiries with investigations into the Watergate break-in or abuses by intelligence agencies, which were bipartisan efforts that operated on a clear track.

Mr. Wyden was hesitant to lay out a specific timeline for the Senate investigation. “That’s the way to really lose credibility,” he said. “I think you let the facts drive the answer to that.”

Representatives Devin Nunes, Republican of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the committee’s ranking member, have made a point of appearing publicly in sync on the Russia investigation, despite their sharp political differences. Both believe that the House investigation is vital, but for different reasons: Mr. Nunes’s primary concern so far has been leaks of classified information, whereas Mr. Schiff has tried to keep the focus on Russian meddling. He has also had to manage other Democrats who want to prioritize digging into Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia and who have called for the committee to subpoena the president’s tax returns.

As for the F.B.I., American officials said there was no sign that the bureau’s work might end anytime soon. Counterintelligence investigations can last for years, and they rarely become public or lead to criminal charges. Agents and analysts, working with their counterparts at the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies, are still trying to figure out the scope of Russian intelligence operations related to the election, including who was involved and how to prevent a repeat.

Exploring any connections between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russians, officials say, is only one aspect. Unlike the criminal cases the F.B.I. investigates — from financial crimes to mafia grifting — the bureau in counterintelligence cases focuses less on “solving” a case than on better understanding the nature of intelligence activity.

“There is a lot of smoke, but the million-dollar question is whether we can prove what essentially comes down to a criminal violation,” said Mr. Montoya, who handled the fallout from the disclosures by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor. “If there are smoking guns out there, it’s likely going to take a human being to say what has happened. Because it is a counterintelligence investigation, it can just go on and on.”

Even then, agents may not be able to answer one of the central questions swirling in the Washington maelstrom: whether anyone from the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow to influence the election.

In recent weeks, it emerged that Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump, had communicated with Guccifer 2.0, the online persona believed to be a front for Russian intelligence officials involved in disseminating emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Stone has denied there was anything improper about the contact, and he was one of many, including political operatives and journalists, to communicate with the hackers.

Michael T. Flynn, a Trump campaign adviser who went on to be his national security adviser, was paid more than $65,000 by companies linked to Russia in 2015, according to congressional investigators. Mr. Flynn was forced to resign after misrepresenting his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Last July, the same month that WikiLeaks began releasing the hacked emails from the Democratic committee, Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trump, visited Moscow for a speaking engagement. Mr. Page has declined to say whom he met there, but has said they were mostly scholars.

American intelligence agencies also intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, in which they discussed their contacts with Trump associates. Foreign allies last year began providing the United States with intelligence indicating possible meetings between Russian officials and associates of Mr. Trump. It is not clear if American intelligence has confirmed whether those meetings actually took place.

Even if the F.B.I. unearths evidence that a Trump associate had colluded with Russia in the presidential election, finding a way to use the information in court would be very difficult. American intelligence agencies would fiercely resist disclosing how they had obtained their information.

“It’s very unusual to be involved in something that ends up in an arrest,” said Christopher Lynch, a former F.B.I. and C.I.A. counterintelligence analyst. “We may know what happens but not be able to do anything about it.”

Former agents have stories of cases that broke surprisingly after long stretches with no developments. But those cases did not require giving updates to Congress and the American people.

“This is unprecedented,” Mr. Montoya said. “When is the last time we had to work on a counterintelligence matter that’s so public?”

»What to Ask About Russian Hacking19/03/17 16:12 from Mike Nova's Shared NewsLinksmikenova shared this story . To the White House director of social media, Dan Scavino: “You tweeted an anti-Semitic meme about Hillary Clinton from Donald Trump’s account during the election. That meme appeared to have come f...

»Trump and Putin - The Inter-Mountain19/03/17 00:03 from Mike Nova's Shared NewsLinksmikenova shared this story from Putin Trump - Google News. Personal Liberty Digest Trump and Putin The Inter-Mountain Although much of the evidence is circumstantial, the specter of Putin interfering in all aspects of American life is mo...

»The Early Edition: March 15, 201715/03/17 15:09 from Mike Nova's Shared NewsLinksmikenova shared this story from Just Security. Zoë Chapman Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news. TRUMP’s WIRETAP CLAIMS The Pres...

»The FBI “Peek Squad” - Townhall15/03/17 14:57 from Mike Nova's Shared NewsLinksmikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. Townhall The FBI “Peek Squad” Townhall Specifically at issue is evidence that the FBI actively worked with Geek Squad employees to train them on how to identify and report suspicious com...

»Today's Headlines and Commentary15/03/17 14:48 from Mike Nova's Shared NewsLinksmikenova shared this story from Lawfare - Hard National Security Choices. The Washington Post informs us that the Justice Department has issued indictments for two Russian FSB officers and two criminal hackers for the theft of 500 millio...

Reviews

Reviews

The statistical effects of the October 28 Letter | Federal Bureau of Investigation - NYT

"Many good questions could and should al-zo be asked when Mr. Comey testifies in the closed session of the House Intelligence Committee next week... Comey's overall "motivations" might be complex and and at the same time simple: the security of the country. The details of these complexities are not easy to read..." - by Michael Novakhov - 4.25.17

Gangs, Intelligence Services, and Politics

M.N.: It would be unforgivably naive to suppose that the U.S. criminal Underworld is not controlled these days by the Russian Mafia, and, in turn, by the Russian Intelligence Services. It would also be unforgivably naive to suppose that there are no messages contained in the various criminal acts, and that there are no connections between the Underworld's recent operations and the present situation in the U.S., including the present investigations. As a matter of facts and the investigative leads, they might hold and provide the most easily accessible clues. Attention, the FBI and the significant others: do access these clues.

Smoke and Fire: The Trumputkins, the Trumpumpkins, "The Tillerson Ultimatum", and bad, bad Assad

By Michael Novakhov: So, the Trump - Putin mysterious marriage is on the rocks... The unresolved issues, whatever, whoever, and however triggers the attention to them and their discussions, have to be resolved: soundly, timely, fundamentally, and the long-term; otherwise they come back and accumulate, and together with the other unresolved issues, snowball and cause the avalanches. Nobody needs this mess, enough snow jobs everywhere... That's what Mishustin thinks...

"If you really want to fight ISIS, look into its origins and essence first." - Fight Against "ISIS"

In the opinion of the great many observers, those "sham" groups are nothing more than the creations and proxies of the Russian Military Intelligence (GRU), formed on the basis of the coalitions of the disaffected ex- Baathist Saddam's military (and first of all, military intelligence officers, historically tied with the GRU), with the "rebels-for-hire", and the Assad's Syrian Intelligence Services, which are also the proxies of the GRU.

"Trumpism" as the "social-political experiment" and the "Gang of Four"

The engineered election of Donald Trump as the U.S. President is the joint operation of the German, Russian, and Israeli Intelligence Services with the major executive and operational role played by the Russian-Jewish Mafia at the head of the International Organized Crime - by Michael Novakhov

Tillerson's Complaint:

"Lavrov won't dance with me..."

Lavrov's Response:

"My mama done tol' me... A man's a two-face..."

Vovchick "The Tarantula", why were you so "loud"?!

For Russia (or any other state), this extraordinary, unusual, demonstrative, primitive, blatant "loudness" was like digging her own grave with regard to the US - Russian relations, especially at the time when their improvement and the relief of sanctions is so desired by them, and no doubts, they would understand this very well. This peculiarity in this affair points to the possible deliberate set-up from the third party... The US - Russia - Germany triangle and the role of the revived German intelligence in it after the WW2 have to be examined under the most powerful microscope, in all their hidden details, and in the historical perspective.

Mike Nova's Shared NewsLinks Review

Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks

Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks

Howl!

The America of my dreams: Shattered. Raped.

The King Trump - by Michael Novakhov

The public prayers for His Majesty's health, wealth, and well-being, and also for the development of his additional intellectual capacities should be held no less than three times a day in all public squares, government offices, courthouses, and the places of worship, and also in all the private and public toilets, with the benefit of generating the taxable and multiple extra-flushes. Hopefully, it will flush out in due time.

The Information Age

All the relevant information at your fingertips: Information is not a commodity for sale but one of the most vital and important inalienable rights. To paraphrase Descartes: "I have access to information therefore I am". ("Information Age" - post of 11.30-21.13 | Image from: Information - Google Images)